What this blog is for

I realize this thread is getting pretty far down the page now, so it may have lived out its time, but I wanted to add a few more things by Alan Jacobs that I just remembered. He has a book called "A Theology of Reading: The Hermeneutics of Love," and in the book he talks about, among other things, the ways in which good reading/interpretation should be like good civic conversation. He puts it this way:

A healthy suspicion, bounded by a commitment to the love of neighbor, is more properly discernment: not the discernment of Nietzsche's serpent, which can only suspect and therefore is not discernment at all--since its conclusions are preestablished--but the discernment that is prepared to find blessings and cultivate friendships; in short, to receive gifts. (88)

It seems to me that one of the most important assumptions, and disabling illusions, of contemporary political criticism is the belief that one can seek political justice through one's literary criticism without seeking to be a just person. Critics simply 'assume' that justice is conferred upon them by the justice of their cause, or that being just is Something easily achieved--" (139-140)

Good, rigorous conversation makes demands not just on our mental clarity and ability to muster a good warranted argument, but also on our *character.*

The Brazilian educator Paulo Freire also has a sustained reflection on this in his work "The Pedagogy of the Oppressed"--not necessarily a work I can wholeheartedly endorse, but this is good food for thought:

Dialogue is the encounter between men, mediated by the world, in order to name the world . . . Because dialogue is an encounter among me who name the world, it must not be a situation where some men name on behalf of others. It is an act of creation; it must not serve as a crafty instrument for the domination of one man by another . . . Dialogue cannot exist however, in the absence of a profound love for the world and for men . . . If I do not love the world -- if I do not love life -- if I do not love men -- I cannot enter into dialogue.

On the other hand, dialogue cannot exist without humility . . . Dialogue, as an encounter of men addressed to the common task of learning and acting, is broken if the parties (or one of them) lack humility. How can I dialogue if I always project ignorance onto others and never perceive my own? . . . Dialogue further requires an intense faith in man, faith in his power to make and remake, to create and re-create, faith in his vocation to be more fully human . . . Nor yet can dialogue exist without hope . . . If the dialoguers expect nothing to come of their efforts, their encounter will be empty and sterile, bureaucratic and tedious.

Finally, true dialogue cannot exist unless the dialoguers engage in critical thinking -- thinking which discerns an indivisible solidarity between the world and men and admits of no dichotomy between them -- thinking which perceives reality as process, as transformation, rather than as a static entity . . . Only dialogue, which requires critical thinking, is also capable of generating critical thinking. Without dialogue there is no communication, and without communication there can be no true education.>

But there are people in this world for whom sitting around the house picking the pills off their afghans is insufficiently entertaining.

LOL--just noticed this one. So now Rod can not only read minds but also see into our homes with his X-ray vision.

Paathetic. Cheap ad hominem and utterly pathetic. But, then again, "what's love got to do with it?" -- right? Love, nothin'. Rod doesn't even go in for minimal courtesy and respect, it seems.

Good grief....

Diane, typing this from her office at the Fortune 100 corporation for which she works...and BTW, did I mention that I don't own an afghan? ;)>